416 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Apr. 4, 



adjacent to the Thiiringerwald, and, as we shall presently see, occurs 

 in the Harz, is also here so abundant, that the name " Cypridina- 

 schiefer" is just as applicable at Saalfeld as in the above-mentioned 

 tracts. 



A few small plants have been discovered in these schists ; but it is 

 specially as we ascend into the upper division of this formation 

 {fig. 2, b) that fossil plants increase rapidly in number, particularly in 

 certain hard, thin, siliceous courses of purplish and greenish sand- 

 stone. It is in this rock that M. Richter has found so many of the 

 peculiar plants which, under the examination of Prof, linger of 

 Gratz, are stated to belong almost entirely to new genera and species. 

 Of these, thirty-three species are enumerated as belonging to Cala- 

 7nari(B, Filices, Selagines, and two species to Zamice and ConifercB. 

 M. Unger believes that he has discovered in some of these plants a 

 structure which indicates that they are prototypes of new genera, 

 and possibly of new families, and others which indicate transitions 

 between families already known ^. 



Following the strata in ascending order on the left bank of the 

 Saal, and after passing over soft schists (the relations of which are 

 obscured), we come to deep undulations, in which rocks of a mineral 

 character quite unknown in any of the inferior deposits are exposed. 

 These beds (c), which are well seen in a ravine around which the 

 road winds opposite Teuschnitz, are highly ferruginous, brownish, 

 micaceous sandstones, which range from the Rotheberg to the locality 

 where we saw the plants. The surfaces of these beds are covered by 

 many large plants, distinct from those of the inferior strata. Among 

 them are Catamites ti^ansitionis, Rothebergia {Megaphyllurn) Holto- 

 beni, and many others. Such lower carboniferous strata occur also 

 in Saxony, particularly at Hainichen Ebersdorf, where coal is worked 

 in them, and Prof. Geinitz has described the numerous plants they 

 contain as being composed of Calamitacece, 3 species ; Fitices, 6 ; 

 LycopodiacecBy 1 ; Stigmaria and Sigillaria, 2 ; and seeds of plants, 

 2 species. According to Geinitz, one only of these twenty- three 

 species is found in the newer and overlying coal fields of Saxony. 



In short, all the plants last enumerated are now recognized by 

 Geinitz as belonging to the lower coal ; whilst those associated with 

 the Cypridina-schists, or Upper Devonian, are, as Richter and Unger 

 state, peculiar to that band. Here, then, if a transition should be 

 traced from one set of beds to the other, we see a considerable di- 

 stinction between the plants of the one and the other group. And, 

 although the decisive test of any intermediate representative of the 

 Mountain or Carboniferous Limestone is here wanting, it was long ago 

 proved by Prof. Sedgwick and one of us, that in the adjacent country 

 of Hof, in Bavaria, a Devonian limestone, which we have since ascer- 

 tained to be precisely like that of Saalfeld, from its myriads of Cy- 

 pridincB, is at once surmounted by schists, sandstones, and a limestone 

 with several species of Producti which are common in the Carbo- 

 niferous Limestone of Britain. 



* See * Zur Flora des Cypridinen-schiefers,' von Prof. F. Unger, Berichte 

 Akad. Wiss. Wien, Bd. 12. p. 595. The, complete work is about to be published 

 by Richter and Unger. 



